Remember the Windows Mobile days? Whenever you plugged your WM into a PC, a pop-up menu would appear on screen with three options namely, ActiveSync, Disk Drive, Internet Sharing. Wasn’t it “Disk Drive”, you always clicked? Of course it’s a handy feature and almost all phones support it directly, even the feature phones. But, you just can’t use your WP7 directly as a USB Stick.

Fortunately, there are some registry hacks which can enable your WP7 to be used as an USB Drive but everyone doesn’t have experience with registry. To make the process easier, XDA member MarcHoover has made an app named ‘USB Storage Enabler Tool’ which uses those registry hacks to enable or disable USB Storage mode.

Here is how it works, you will need Zune installed on your PC and a WP7 device connected at least one time. And to enter into USB Storage mode, just close Zune.

By the way, this app works just fine even with a locked phone. For downloading, hit the source link or click here.

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(10) Readers Comments

Jim Szymanski

May 15, 2011 at 10:34 pm

Option B. Purchase Easy File Hub for 0.99 and after downloading the desktop tool, you can see your entire device directory tree over WiFi. Can open media or Office files, but can also upload any file to a Storage area on your device, working like a USB drive. Can also access your Dropbox and Google Docs accounts through the app.

But this is free and looks simple enough to use.

Joe Green

May 15, 2011 at 10:39 pm

Option C. Keep your WinMo 6.5 phone with your favorite custom ROM and have all the features that keep popping up as the latest and greatest news for your Win 7. Except the fact that I can’t get those beautiful new shiny pieces of screaming fast hardware, my phone does exactly what I want, when I want it. I get my daily laughs now by reading what “new” feature is available on the iPhone, Windows phone, or android, that I have been using for years. :)

Jim Szymanski

May 15, 2011 at 10:53 pm

Agreed Joe, but aren’t you getting just a little tired of lockups and soft resets. As long as that little button holds out guess all is good. Hey, I am not knocking WinMo 6.5, once the most powerful mobile OS in the world. In fact I still have a Tilt2 as a backup. But despite all the things that are temporarily lacking in Windows Phone, it also brings a bunch of new stuff to the show. Good possibility that Mango may just meet your expectations.

Joe Green

May 16, 2011 at 9:24 am

Actually, the ROM I have been using on my Titl2 for the last year is very stable. It locks up less than once a week, and only when I am running 5 or more programs simultaneously. I have not hard reset in at least 8 months and I bet if I did, it would not even lock up once a week. (I have tons of programs that I “tried” cluttering up my registry.) I just don’t understand how WP7 and a closed system is a step forward. As I have never used WP7, I can’t really speak to it, but my RSS reader on my phone pulls the articles from this forum and puts them on my today screen, and I am constantly saying to myself “What? It couldn’t do that before this new app?”. Don’t get me wrong, I am insanely jealous of all the new hardware out there (although I will never go to a soft keyboard), but I have yet to see an OS that can replace 6.5. I know that 6.5 was not for the masses. Apple is. And WP7 is trying to be. WM 6.5 was for folks who don’t mind getting their hands dirty. Like me. I have Mort scripts to replace multiple step processes with on tap. Actually, this Dilbert says it all….
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-03-10/

farted

May 16, 2011 at 4:17 pm

Listen to Joe Green. Joe Green speaks the truth.

Visiting

May 17, 2011 at 10:14 am

Joe,

I was completely in the same view as you… WinMo 6.5 did everything I could think to do, had scripts to setup everything and restore from a hard reset/rom flash, the HW keyboard on my Tilt2 was going to need to be pried out of my cold dead hand…

Then I actually tried WP7 on the Focus… WOW! It was night and day for me… It was THAT much better of a user experience for me. I became an instant convert. The speed and responsiveness is great, the whole usage experience just flows so well, and the soft keyboard is awesome.

With the 4″ screen and the way auto-correct and press-to-correct work I am actually faster and with less effort typing on the Focus vs the Tilt2.

All I can say is give it a fair shot before making too firm a judgement…

Joe Green

May 17, 2011 at 6:54 pm

Well – I typed in a whole long response, hit “Post” and got a message that I forgot my name/email. When I hit back, my message did not come back. As a software engineer, I am embarrassed for my entire species that someone can implement such a poorly designed web site. :)

Jim Szymanski

May 17, 2011 at 10:26 pm

Been burned by that a few times. Now if it type more than a few sentences I usually select/copy everything just in case. Especially frustrating when I am typing in one of those silly 1″ x 2″ text boxes to report a bug or other problem only to have the built-in messaging system fail. Now I write my comments in OneNote first, so I can read/edit, then paste into the mini box. And repeat as many times as it takes.